I found some information on the web by googling 'ITS1a thyratron'; they appear to be a neon-phosphor hybrid. There is a datasheet for one of the Ebay auctions; I cant read Russian but the largest numbers are 5,000 and 10,000 so I think that would be an upper-bound on the lifetime.
The dominant emission is from the phosphor. Could be similar to the NE-2G bulbs which have an interior white phosphor mixture yet they glow green. I have a few of those bulbs but have not had a chance to life-test them. Although they look neat, I personally think they look too much like a 7-segment green LED or VFD to justify the price, which is slightly higher than IN-18's. Also, they dont appear to be as bright as nixies, which maybe one reason why these tubes didn't get widespread usage. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/a0eed49e-bc19-4d2e-b5f5-b53131436af5%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
